+++++ Tokyo-3 Intercontinental. Monday, +13.

Shinji, after a shower and bath that had been focused entirely around comforting him, was seated at Funaho's side on the couch in the drawing room. Whether to distract him from what had happened, or because Nanako had told Washu of his troubles, his evening's entertainment was a primer on the most basic of mathematical concepts. To his surprise, Ðandy was playing the part of the 'helpful assistant' in the lesson, using her powers to animate visual examples based on what Washu was saying. From time to time, the woman at his side would pause the lesson to recap everything they'd gone over and how it all fed into the greater whole, all while playing with his hair as she kept his head in her lap.

His mind would occasionally force his pain back to the surface, and just as quickly he would have three powerful women assuring him that everything would be ok. The first ten times it happened were the hardest, as he spent time sobbing and telling them how sorry he was for what he'd allowed to come to pass. The next dozen or so times, the apologies were muted as his companions' unwavering unity on nothing being his fault began to sink in just as deeply as the lessons on math were. Slowly, through embarrassment and grief, his mind accepted that he was no longer living with someone who blamed him for the sun rising. He knew he'd have moments where he slid backwards…but he needed to look to the future now. "I'm…uhm…I'm kind of hungry."

"I could certainly do with something to eat myself," Funaho declared with a soft smile.

"With Your Majesty's permission," Ðandy ventured, hope in her tone that the spirit of the evening could be retained longer, "I would be overjoyed to make us all something."

Washu stretched her arms out cutely. "I'll help. We need to get a few things straight, and it looks to me like Shinji's comfortable where he is."

Funaho smoothed her hand over Shinji's chest. "I rather enjoy him here, yes. We will discuss some mnemonics while dinner is prepared." Her tone became just crisp enough to emphasize her meaning, "Play nice."

"We're all friends here." Placing her arm around Ðandy's, Washu lightly tugged her towards the kitchenette. "No reason for us to get all grumpy anymore." Closing the door behind them as they exited the drawing room, she breathed out in frustration. "I need you to tell me, right now, whether you are going to be able to get over your position on pre-marital sex."

Politely but firmly freeing herself, Ðandy took stock of what she had to work with while not looking directly at her workmate. "My 'position' is the position of heaven. I know that you are every bit as divine as I am, and that your opinion on such matters is formed by the adherents of your worship, but it is not up to me to speak to the righteousness of my father's decrees."

"Even if it becomes a matter of keeping Shinji from completely falling to Hild's side?" Hopping up to sit on a nearby counter, she laid out the situation as she saw it, "Whether we like it or not, she now has full access to him. She will let herself be beaten constantly, for as long as Misaki wants to do it, knowing that she will be gaining esteem in Shinji's eyes. If we deprive him of a little tussle in the sheets from time to time, she'll be more than happy to fill out the balance on her own."

"He is not the type of man to-"

"To see someone suffering, and feel that it's his duty to alleviate that suffering?" Washu snorted. "Of course, that sounds nothing like the man we're dealing with. He's not a political creature, lady. He won't see the trap she's laying, and he won't take it real well when he finds out that she actually is the aggrieved party in your family tree."

Ðandy kept her composure, if barely, as she retorted, "She defied the will of heaven. She insisted that my father abandon his principles simply to give in to what she wanted." Turning any anger towards the food preparation, she worked towards restoring her own sense of self after the trials of the past few days. "I have faith that Shinji will see the right of things, and will wait until our union can be blessed by my father."

"Already so certain he'll choose you as one of the offerings?" While it wasn't entirely fair of Washu to use the knowledge she had of the negotiations, she wasn't going to waste time pulling punches. "I mean, it's certainly understandable that you think so highly of your appeal, but Shinji doesn't always see things so simply."

The knife she was using to quarter a carrot with paused in its practiced motions. "What do you mean 'offerings'?"

"Your father is pushing for a political marriage. At least two brides, to be chosen by Shinji, from your homeland. He has declared that he will waive the usual prohibition, so long as Shinji is willing to undergo the trials. When Shinji learns that these trials will assure peace, he'll demand to go through them right away." Not enjoying the dawning horror on Ðandy's face, she refrained from digging the knife in further. "You are going to have competition for his time. Competition for his attention. Competition for his touch." Sliding off the counter, she walked back towards the door to the drawing room. "What you'd never have is competition for his love. From what I can tell, he's got more than enough of that for everyone. I'll be right back."

Left alone for a moment in the kitchenette, Verðandy just stared at empty space. Her father…was making an exception? The man who had refused to bend the rules for the woman that had given him his firstborn? Who had then refused to bend the rules for her elder sister? Who had then refused to bend the rules for her?! Her father, the most powerful being in all known space, was…begging to break his own rules for a mortal man? She was not prone to fits of rage. She spent most of her life trying desperately to keep everyone and everything around her happy. She had suffered for millennia uncounted under the strict rules imposed upon her by the System Force at the behest of her father's law…and now an exception to the rule was being made for….

"Do you know of the tragedy of Azusa Masaki Jurai?" Washu's steady voice preceded her into the kitchenette again. With a sheaf of paper in hand, she eyed Verðandy with cold, uncaring, eyes.

"He would not bend these rules for my sister," Verðandy ground out.

"Azusa was, by general acclaim, a much better man than he had been a boy." Intent upon making things clear, she ignored the younger goddess' existential crisis. "Growing up, he had been brash, brazen, and eager to throw himself into contests of strength and will simply to show that he would always come out the victor. Many wonder what it was that finally tempered that trait, only assuming that it was marriage and ascension to the throne that had done the work."

The blue-blonde goddess frowned at Washu.

"You see, his father was far older than he was. He had been born to him very late in his reign, and the line of Masaki rulers of Jurai had not been assured until the Empire was blessed by Azusa's birth. Azusa was a dutiful son, he listened and learned from his father what he could regarding the ruling of intergalactic empires, but he always wished to bring a smile to his father's face by showing him that the future would be in strong, capable, hands."

Verðandy's brow knit, looking for why this was germane to anything.

"Just before his father died, he learned one final lesson. All his father had ever wanted, was peace." Washu shrugged, the idea self-evident to any living being with a good heart. "Too late, Azusa found out that the one thing that would have brought a smile to his father's face was the only thing he'd not tried to show him he was capable of. The Thanagarian Reach? When the System Force took one of the hawk people's fervent wish for a war that spanned light centuries? The only reason that war stayed limited to the Thanagarians and the surrounding systems was because Azusa Masaki Jurai made a bargain with your father."

Her eyes flew open wide, her breath caught in her throat. "We…we were told that…."

"That a young child was owed a wish, and had used that wish for peace?" Washu scoffed. "Makes a great story, and a lovely bit of propaganda. That young child, the one chosen by the System Force to act as the sacrifice to spare trillions of lives, was Tenchi Masaki Jurai. Azusa's great-grandson." Seeing the anger drain from Verðandy's face, she let her voice grow warm again. "A powerful force for good was struck down to counter the terrible force for evil. Balance achieved, galaxy at peace." Resuming her place on the countertop, she finished the history lesson, "By all accounts, your father was devastated. He expected to hear a declaration of war and was preparing to defend his people to the last, and had sent several envoys with declarations of official mourning, with offers of peace accords, with gifts of all kinds."

"We were told that the emperor had died of a broken heart."

"A half-truth, which is generally the best kind of lie," Washu sighed. "He beheaded himself with his own blade. His bid for peace had cost him a little boy, not much more than a toddler, that was everything his own father had wanted him to be. Strong, kind, peaceful." Tears threatened her eyes, and she brushed them away angrily. "His granddaughter had wished a curse upon him, taking Tenchi's body and vanishing. His son stopped talking to him, only staying in Juraian space to help uphold the peace his grandson's death had bought him. Azusa Masaki Jurai felt himself a failure. As a father, as a man, as a ruler."

The real message behind the history lesson dawned on Verðandy. "Why in heaven's name did my father send me here to do anything with Shinji?!" The System Force had almost brought both heaven and Jurai to their knees, and now she was here acting…acting as an agent of chaos? "I…I must-"

"You must finish cooking," Washu nudged her with her foot. "There is something beyond either of us at work here, kid. Funaho sees it, Misaki feels it, and it's damn near driven their daughter, my sister, psycho bonkers crazy. I asked you when we walked in here, whether you were willing to set aside your position on pre-marital sex, because you need to understand what's happening here. Not everyone lives by your morality. The empresses, good and noble women, are still women. With women's needs, and women's wants. They had sworn off men entirely, intent upon reigning over the empire and dedicating their lives to that. Then we find Shinji, and we find his heart, his spirit of service, his dedication to making the world better with everything he has. They find a second chance at happiness."

Easing herself back into food preparation, Verðandy breathed out, "And they would like to…love him."

Scanning the next section of the Ikari Accords, Washu nodded. "There's enough tragedy out there already, kid. Maybe let the nice people swap DNA recreationally to increase the amount of happy."

"Would that truly make him happy?" Surprising even herself, the question was genuine. Putting more concentration into meal preparation, she began to piece together a new plan to improve Shinji's life through less magical means. "He seems to have more than enough restraint when faced with temptation." With no answer forthcoming from the woman in the room with her, she was left to think of the ways that she might balance what she'd learned with what she could do without more serious prayer.

+++++ Tokyo-3 Intercontinental. Tuesday, +14.

Following an evening full of laughter, learning, and light, Shinji fell asleep tucked safely in the arms of Funaho. The regal Empress had reassured him that everything and everyone would be safe. That he could let go and spend one night completely confident that the might of an entire empire was guarding his sleep. And let go, he had. The witching hour had come before the first hint of a dream visited his slumbering mind.

As far as dreams went, it wasn't nearly the worst he'd ever experienced. His mind became aware of the new situation and surroundings, quickly accepting that it was a dream he was in and not anywhere 'real'. Twilight ruled the horizon, the skies above a deep and vivid violet. Fine fescue rolled out in all directions, the emerald and forest greens mixing together invitingly. The chair he was seated upon, a throne of moss and peat, allowed him to recline enough to watch the twinkling stars of an alien sky.

The voice that spoke, calm and inviting, managed to inform him of its presence without sending him into an immediate defensive stance, "If I am to be honest, I would not have expected this tableau from you." Walking around from behind him to stand at his side, Hild smiled wanly in greeting. "But, perhaps I should have considering who you are." Totally nude, she sat gently on the armrest closest to her, taking his hand and setting it atop her thigh.

Safe in a dream, he was now able to begin making sense of the odd woman's motivations. "I've never seen this place before." In the distance, the sound of waves frolicking upon a shore provided their song. "Why would you have spent all that time using normal medicine when you could have just used magic? Why not strike then and there, when you clearly didn't want Ðandy to interfere?"

"If you wish to properly judge what a man will do when trapped, alone and helpless, you have to see him when under duress and when properly cared for." Using his hand to stroke her skin, she offered him a teasing wink. "I had already watched you under duress. Appearing before you as I am now would have put you on your guard. Better to appear small and safe, coddle you gently, see if you were easy to bait." Bringing his fingers dangerously close to her more private regions, she sighed out in contentment. "You passed my test rather easily. Most men in your position would have tried to appear tough, or collapsed into sobbing wrecks. Feeling their manhood so threatened in front of a cute woman, they would have put up a false front or fell apart entirely."

Shinji nodded to the logic. "You wanted to know your enemy. Make certain that I wouldn't surprise you somehow."

"Enemy?" Affecting a pout, she clicked her tongue in disapproval. "No. If I were an enemy, I would have struck you down. I had you alone, without protection, in a situation that could very easily have ended in your death. I had your little Norn trapped in her necklace. With a wiggle of my nose and a nod of my head, I could have emasculated that oaf Tyr and doomed your species to extinction. If you'll remember correctly, I haven't taken a single swing at anyone."

She was telling the truth. She hadn't even attempted to defend herself when Misaki charged. She let herself be thrown through the window. Whatever it was that she wanted, it wasn't going to be won by strength of arms. "If not an enemy…what can I offer you?" He thought through the things he had access to, the things he'd learned of. "You wanted to be tied to me. You weren't upset that Ðandy tied herself to us. You don't need defending, if you did you wouldn't have come to me. You don't want us to die, because Ðandy said that if we die, you die." A side comment Ðandy had made came to mind. "Your daughter…is Ðandy's sister. That would mean Ðandy's father and you…. You want to hurt him. You want him to know that retaliating against you will ignite a war. Now, it would ignite a war and hurt his own daughter."

"Gold star." Leaning forward, she gave Shinji the kind of kiss he'd never have experienced with a mortal woman. Smiling seductively as she sat upright, she supported his conclusions. "Tyr and his unilateral control over the System Force has dictated terms to Niflheim for far too long. Long, long ago I offered him the grandest prize of all," she spread her arms and made a show of herself, "and after taking what he wanted he cast me out."

This…wasn't a dream. Shinji's more logical mind began to assert control, reminding him that he was now speaking to the woman that worried the Juraians enough that the empresses themselves joined the battle. "…Where am I?"

"In a dream," Hild reassured him with a calming gesture. "The night belongs to me, my dear. Here, in your dreams, in the place where no lies may be told, I swear to you that I do not wish you harm." Setting one hand on his chest, she patted him softly. "Try to say something false. Anything. Say your name is something it's not, or that you are some type of sentient melon, or that you breathe in fairy floss."

In the spirit of honesty, there was something that was pressing on his mind. It had been, since just before he'd collapsed into a quivering wreck. "I…enjoyed your touch." If the process worked as described, that would be true. The brief flicker of confusion and curiosity in her eyes told him that she didn't think he would have tested things the way he was. "I am attracted to you." Again, true. "I wish you had talked to me, instead of just…appearing and doing what you wished." That brought a slight touch of shame into her gaze. "I forgive my fathurk." To Shinji, it felt like his throat had just slammed shut. As if his lungs had collapsed. As if he would never again know the taste of the air around him. Clutching at his neck, he began to panic.

"No, no, no." With supernatural grace and poise, Hild twirled about and knelt astride his lap. Using her calm, measured, voice to urge him to relax, she reassured him that all would be well, "Steady, steady. You are in a dream, your autonomic processes are caring for your body in the waking world. You don't need to breathe here, you are in control of your state of being here." Showcasing her natural assets, she took several deep breaths to show him that it was possible to do so should he wish to. "You see?"

Now blushing in both embarrassment and attraction, he had to forcibly pry his eyes from the mouthwatering sight of her physical movements. It took him another minute or so to feel 'right' again, and when he had what he believed to be his breath he did what came naturally. "I am sorry, Hild-san. I shouldn't…stare."

Seductively laying forward against him, she put her lips a hair's breadth from his own. "Stare all you want. Whether they like it or not, you and I? We're together forever now." Brushing him with a kiss, she breathed out in a husky voice, "Anytime, anywhere. You help me, and I will give you everything."

He had already been gifted physical delights beyond his wildest imaginings. Nanako and Minaho, individually or together, made him feel like the richest man alive. The question now before him was, was there anything Hild could give him that those two women could not? Was sex, as great and wonderful as it might be, enough to push him to declare an alliance against a man he'd never met? This was a dream. This was his dream.

Hild grimaced in frustration as she suddenly was lying face first upon the throne her prey had been using just a heartbeat before. Feeling his presence a few feet behind her, she wiggled her rear enticingly. "You know, if you wanted to take me from behind all you had to do was ask."

"If you wanted my help," he borrowed her phrasing, "all you had to do was ask." He crossed his arms, trying very hard to ignore the raging erection she'd given him. "I tried to solve something on my own and set all of this in motion. I am not going to willingly help you do anything until I've talked it through with someone I trust." His voice softened, "I'm not alone anymore…it's time I stopped acting like I was."

Rolling lazily over, she cocked one leg over the armrest of the throne and stuck her tongue playfully out. "Fine. I'll wait for you to come around. Just be aware," she tapped the side of her head, "I'm in here at all times. We're tied together now, three souls in one for the rest of time. All you have to do," she blew him a kiss, sending him to the waking world, "is ask."

+++++ Tokyo-3 Intercontinental. Tuesday, +14.

The cognitive shift from standing with his arms crossed in a twilit field of rolling grass and waking up clutched protectively in the arms of Funaho Masaki Jurai caused Shinji to wince in pain. Having never experienced what he just had gone through brought everything around him into question briefly, the answers screaming themselves out in his mind just as rapidly as the worries were raised. Seeking to relax in the warm embrace of a good woman for a bit longer, he closed his eyes and focused on getting his breathing under control.

"That was very brave, very mature of you," Funaho murmured, approbation baked into every word. "It takes a will forged in the stars themselves to turn down a creature such as she when she sets you in her sights."

So much for relaxation. "I can't…uhm, I can't ask anyone to dedicate themselves to the team if I'm willing to just…you know…." Feeling her thighs shift, he became aware that his body's autonomic processes had, in fact, been working during the time he was in the dreamlands. "I-I-," his protestations were cut off by a soft kiss.

Well aware that as attractive as she was, that she was not anywhere near as attractive as Hild, Funaho instead chose the more personal route of demonstrating what loving affection could feel like. Guiding him towards light petting, to start, she engaged his hands with her upper torso while she took his 'morning problem' in hand. The benefit of a lover who can speak through your mind is that I don't have to stop kissing you to tell you that it has been far, far too long since I have felt any desire to touch a man as I am touching you now.

Unable to 'vocalize' his thoughts, Shinji put all of his efforts towards thinking of how grateful and happy he was that she would even consider him as a potential lover. To know that he was worthy of her affection filled him with a mixture of pride and duty. If she wished for him to touch her, he must have something going for him. If she wished for him to touch her, it was incumbent upon him to give her everything he could to make her happy. He wanted to make her happy. He needed to make her happy.

You do make me happy, Funaho mentally caressed him with the words. You do not need to humor me, physically, to do that.

Breaking the kiss, with her still lying partly atop him, Shinji shook his head. "N-no…I mean, yes…but I'm not humoring you. I'm…what I'm trying to say is…you're…."

She could see, in his mind, the truth of his thoughts and why he couldn't get them into the words he felt would convey his intent. To him every woman in the world had their own beauty, even those others might consider 'ugly' could still have things about them that would draw his eye. If he said that someone was beautiful, the word itself took on very different meanings. Those things that attracted him to one woman were different but equal to those that attracted him to another. In his eye, life itself had more than enough beauty for him now that he was free. "Can you accept that in public you must serve as second to my wife and me?"

That she was still actively massaging a very prominent feature on his body while asking certainly made it easier to see things her way. "I…don't want to rule an empire." That was true. "I just…just want to be…a good…partner."

Moving astride him, she placed her lips against his once more. Then sheathe your sword, my good and noble Knight. Your life in service to love starts now.

+++++ Tokyo-3 Intercontinental. Tuesday, +14.

A sudden and unexpected storm began to lash the Tokyo-3 area with visible lightning strikes against high-rise rods and heavy rains. From her place in the sitting room, Washu looked out at the sky with an arched eyebrow. She had spent all night watching as Verðandy attempted patience in the face of Funaho's declaration that she would comfort their shared prize, and noted that there were severe weather events each time the blue-blonde Norn put on a plastic smile. One or two unexpected showers might have gone unnoticed, but as they were now on the seventh such meteorological surprise she felt that addressing the elephant in the room was now unavoidable. "You do know that the only thing stopping you from doing the same is your asinine insistence that such pairings are harmful outside of a legal contract, right?"

"It is a touch more involved than that," Verðandy stated without heat or venom. "I must also contend with the fact that for my entire life I have firmly held that any marriage I entered into would be beneath the laws of heaven. Someone I…have come to admire greatly is currently…."

Washu, more aware of Funaho's likes and dislikes, chuckled and said, "Yeah, any hole's a goal with her. You know he's not going to love you any less if you can't do this, right? If you want to find your own pole to plant your hill on, nobody's stopping you."

"That is also not correct." Closing her eyes and breathing in deep, she forced back the dour images her mind conjured. "You see, the Doublet System was designed so that for any of our kind killed, an equal number of demons died. There has never been a Triplet, but there has also never been a mortal quite like Shinji either. Were I to seek a union with another, the union would push Shinji towards Hild. In order to stop whatever insanity she plans, my choice is Shinji…or nothing." Her gaze grew serious. "To be with Shinji would not be such a terrible fate, not by any stretch. Now, though, any union with him will by law…include Hild."

"Then why bother with a union?" Washu made a few more comments on a provision that needed clarity, anticipating that the grammatical oversight was not intentional, her eyes now back on her work. "You're no less a part of his life without a ring."

Verðandy, too, found another place to look. "Is it so strange that I would want a romantic union with a man who sees more than the crass physical shell I inhabit?" Watching the rain wash the city free of dust and dirt, she wondered at how or when she might be allowed to give Shinji a more tangible sign of affection. "To know that he is dedicated to me, and to bear a…." Moving to subconsciously spin one of the sigil rings she wore that limited her powers upon Earth, she finally noted its absence. Her hands then shot up to her ears, seeking the three earrings that would have served to accomplish the same task and finding nothing but unadorned skin. "Oh…oh my, oh my…."

Not feeling anything having changed in the bedroom, Washu merely grunted out, "What now?"

"Oh my, oh my, oh my," the Norn continued as she stood up to frantically look around where she'd been sitting.

The change in pitch from concern to growing terror was enough to bring Washu's full attention. "What. Now."

Continuing to chant the two-word replacement for a singular, though far more impolite, term, she extended her search beyond the immediate area and to every room she'd been into in reverse order.

Washu rolled her eyes to the ceiling, stepping through a portal to put herself between Verðandy and the bedroom door. Leaning against the doorframe, she watched the apparently fruitless search for something small enough to hide under a throw pillow. After another ten minutes of frantic chanting, the Norn was surprised to find Washu standing where she needed to go. Shaking her head slowly, the red-haired scientist made it clear that nobody was going through that door. "No. Whatever it is, whatever crisis you're dealing with, no."

"You don't understand!"

"Because you haven't explained anything."

"We're all in danger!"

"Some people think it's a choice, I prefer to think of it as a lifestyle."

"How can you make jokes?!"

"Because I've been around for a long, long, time. If I didn't laugh at things, I'd probably have killed you all." Grasping Verðandy by the back of the head, she put her other hand over the Norn's mouth. "When I let you go, you are going to tell me what has your panties climbing up your ass. You are not going to continue to panic. We are goddesses. The mortals get a little trigger happy when we lose our cool." Slowly removing her hands, she lifted one eyebrow in anticipation of illumination.

"My seals, they're gone."

"Your…seals."

"Seals, inhibitors, power limiters," she added, her anxiety climbing again. "Without them, I could unintentionally use far more power to do things!"

Washu's gaze went flat. "You're worrying over your training wheels? Seriously?"

"I could destroy the Earth!"

"So could I." Shoving Verðandy towards the sitting room again, Washu began to lay into the poor Norn, "So can Shinji. If you go in there, I'd bet Funaho would. Right now, in orbit, there are thirty-eight Juraian warships capable of turning this entire solar system into a game of marbles at the flip of a switch. They don't because they know they shouldn't. What's so dangerous about you having access to a well of power if you don't bloody well use it?"

Ever since she had been a child, she had worn the seals on her power. For as long as she could remember, she had worn them. She had been told, repeatedly, that if she did not wear them while in the mortal realm that everything would, not could, be destroyed. Now, pushing her back into the seat she'd left, a fellow Goddess from a far different walk of life had asked her the one question she'd never bothered to ask herself. "I…haven't destroyed anything."

"Thankfully."

"But…but my father told me I would."

"My first husband once told me he'd love me eternally. We all deal with life's little disappointments from time to time."

"But my father can't lie!"

"Evidence to the contrary aside?"

"He…he lied." Verðandy's eyes grew distant, her face dropping down towards her lap. "He lied to me."

Washu snorted, then shook her head and went back to work. "Just let me know if I need to install a stripper pole somewhere."